Long-lost Chinatown Roast Meat Master, 86, Found At 116 Shao La In People’s Park Food Centre

He didn’t actually retire after Old Master Roasted Grill closed

When we reported on Old Master Roasted Grill’s closure in August 2022, Master Cho was 82. The stall had shut that July, around 18 months after opening.

Sham Hei told us then that roasting large quantities of meat alone from 5am daily had become too physically demanding for Master Cho. Unable to find an assistant, Sham Hei advised his friend to retire. Attempts to hire a replacement roast master also failed, and the space was converted into a herbal soup stall.

However, Master Cho, who did not hold a stake in the stall, was not ready to stop working.

In a separate interview with us, he explains that he went on to work at the OCBC Centre outlet of local Chinese restaurant chain Peach Garden, where a larger team helped ease the physical demands of the job. He stayed there for about two years, before moving on to hawker stall 116 Shao La.

How he landed the job at 116 Shao La

Master Cho and 116 Shao La owner Liu Li go back a long way. Over the past 20 years, he had been hired intermittently as a consultant roast master for her business.

So when her previous roast master left, Liu Li immediately thought of Master Cho, who belongs to her late father’s generation of roast meat cooks.

She trusts him to make the cooking and operational decisions, including developing the recipes. “He’s the best, we just need to listen to him!” she tells us cheerfully.

The arrangement also means Master Cho no longer has to do everything himself. Liu Li employs two other assistants at the stall to handle more physically demanding jobs, such as lifting heavy pieces of meat, leaving him to focus on roasting.

That is why when Liu Li called to offer him a job, Master Cho accepted. He tells us that the pay (around mid four-figures) is comparable to what he earned at Peach Garden, while the hours are shorter. He now works from 6.30am to 4pm, with roughly one rest day a week.

For someone who enjoys working, this is a welcome change.

Master Cho had previously run a roast meat stall in Upper Thomson, near Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home. He told us then that it closed around 2014 amid works on the Thomson-East Coast MRT line. He subsequently cooked for other stall owners, finding that less demanding than running a business himself.

Still roasting meats at 86, despite smoke and haze

Asked how he gets his roast pork skin so crispy, Cho gives a matter-of-fact answer: “There’s no secret to it.”

“You just need to watch the fire. You have to roast it slowly, it cannot be rushed,” he adds.

At 116 Shao La, the meats are roasted using a combination of charcoal and gas. Unlike the fully charcoal-roasted meats at Old Master Roasted Grill, the stall starts the roasting process with a gas cooker before finishing the meat over charcoal. The hawker centre does not permit full charcoal roasting because of the smoke it produces.

When we visited, Master Cho was in good spirits, appearing sprightly and energetic as he went about his work. We expressed concern about him spending hours at the roasting pit amid the recent haze, but he was unfazed, saying it didn’t bother him.

Why keep working at his age?

Master Cho’s civil servant daughter has asked him to retire, too. But the prospect of staying home all day does not appeal to him.

“I’m already 86,” he says when asked when he plans to stop working. “But I’ll carry on until I cannot work anymore.”

When we tease him about whether he would still be working at 90, he replies without hesitation: “If I can, sure!”

With more help at 116 Shao La, Master Cho enjoys greater freedom to delegate tasks and concentrate on the work he knows best. Rather than commit to a retirement date, he prefers to take things day by day and keep working for as long as he can.

Finding someone to eventually take over, however, may be another challenge.

Master Cho tells us that apprentices he has trained tend to leave and start their own stalls after six to eight months of learning from him. The work is tough, and he believes few young people are keen to take it up.

From more than 11 stalls to one

116 Shao La is a family business established by Liu’s late father, who came from Guangzhou and settled in Singapore with his family.

The business was originally based in a coffee shop at Block 116, Lorong 2 Toa Payoh – hence its name. Liu cannot recall exactly when the stall first opened, but says it had already been operating for a long time when she officially took over the family business in 2006. The original Toa Payoh stall has since been sold.

At its peak, Liu Li says the business had more than 11 stalls in Singapore. Today, its sole remaining outlet is at People’s Park Food Centre, where it has operated for more than two decades.

“We were continually making losses for over a year during the pandemic, so we decided to close all of them except the People’s Park branch, which was the most popular and our HQ,” she explains.

Would she like to open more outlets in the future? “Sure, if I can find a capable team. But with rents, food and labour costs rising, expansion is unlikely for now,” she says.

Liu Li works at the People’s Park stall daily, handling orders and keeping the business running. Sales have their ups and downs, she says, declining to share details of the stall’s earnings.

The menu

The traditional roast duck is priced from $13 a quarter portion to $46 whole, while a plate of roast duck rice is $4. The stall also serves herbal duck, marinated with Chinese angelica root. Liu Li says both versions come with crispy skin.

There are two char siew options for customers who prefer fatter or leaner meat. The fatter version uses bu jian tian, described in the video as a cut from the pig’s underarm area. Though the cut costs more, she says both char siew options sell for the same price.

Mixed roast pork and char siew rice is $5.50, while the noodle version costs $6. Combo platters featuring two types of meat start at $8 for one person.

Roast duck still as good

We sampled the roast meats on a separate visit, and the duck remains a strong choice, with crispy skin, well-seasoned meat and a moist texture.

Our colleague who regularly tapowed the roast duck noodles agrees, describing the skin as crackly and caramelised, with juicy meat and a subtle smokiness, though she finds the eggy wonton noodles average.

$6 pork skin rolls and house-made Chinese sausage

Beyond the roast meats, the stall sells a la carte braised pork skin rolls for $6. Liu Li says in the video that some older regulars travel from Tampines and Jurong specifically for the dish.

The pork skin is rolled, tied and braised slowly. She says rolling it gives the skin a bouncier texture without making it feel too oily.

Another offering is Chinese sausage, priced at $6. Made in-house with ground pork and Hua Tiao wine, the sausage has fragrant notes of Chinese wine, a satisfying chew and a sweetness that doesn’t overwhelm.

Each morning, the stall’s display is packed so densely with meat that Liu Li jokes in the video that they can only see the “outside world” once everything has sold out. For her, the regulars who keep coming back are the best endorsement of the food.

116 Shao La is at #01-1092 People’s Park Food Centre, 32 New Market Rd, S050032. Open daily 6am – 9pm.